AUSTIN, Texas — Like with the Internet, sex could be the dirty little secret to virtual reality’s success.

Brian Shuster, a Montreal-based tech entrepreneur who helped pioneer Internet ads in the 1990s, is betting on it. He has plowed $50 million of his own money into developing pornographic virtual-reality software that will be compatible with headsets from firms like Oculus VR.

That’s despite the fact that Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook last year for $2 billion, has been tight-lipped about the prospect of its goggles being used to broadcast high-tech smut. Instead, the firm has been showing prototype headsets like the Oculus Rift as gaming platforms.

“Everybody who picks up a Rift says, ‘How am I gonna watch porn on this?’” Shuster told The Post in an interview at SXSW Interactive, the annual tech conference. “It’s just a universal truth. That’s how you know you’re on the right path.”

Nevertheless, the budding VR porn niche is already littered with casualties. Wicked Paradise, a VR porn game developed for Oculus headsets, shuttered last year after initial fanfare, reportedly over concerns that software glitches had disorienting effects that made users more nauseous than turned on.

Pricey equipment and production costs can easily send the cost of producing a VR skin flick north of $100,000. As such, some early versions of VR porn are simply exploiting the 180-degree viewing field of the headsets, creating a more immersive way to ogle.

VR porn faces scarce funding partly because of the stigma it faces in finance, said Cindy Gallop, an ad consultant focused on the sex industry.

“It is the fear of what other people will think,” says Gallop, noting that even crowd-funding site Kickstarter has banned porn ventures.

Brian ShusterHandout

Shuster’s Canada-based company Utherverse also has developed VR programs for college education, real-estate sales and convention production. It’s embraced a “visionary strategy,” says Alec Helmy, publisher of XBIZ, an adult entertainment trade site.

“Brian thinks on a whole different level than most producers and live-cam operators,” Helmy said.

“Given the complexity of his platform, very few companies will have the know-how to create something like what he has.”

On Utherverse’s RedLightCenter.com site, users can haunt virtual nightclubs to dance, buy virtual drinks for dates, or stuff virtual dollar bills into the garters of virtual strippers before getting it on in virtual private rooms.

While early critics have complained that the images can look robotic and pixellated, Shuster says they’re stimulating enough to create a surge in demand once VR headsets hit store shelves.

Those initial sales will, in turn, fuel research and development to improve the technology “dramatically” over the next few years, he says. New features will include “networked touch” that allow users to stimulate each other using smart sex toys.

Nevertheless, the promise of VR has continually been put on hold, with Oculus in particular famous for missing deadlines as it seeks to perfect its product.

“I’ve reached out to Oculus and told them we need to sit down and talk,” Shuster said. “But they haven’t shipped and they’re not returning my calls.”

Oculus, which most recently signaled headsets may not hit shelves until next year, didn’t respond to requests for comment.